Inquiring minds want to know.

It’s the question of the day for investors to ponder. That the Fed will raise interest rates was enhanced by the announcement of a special “closed” meeting Monday. (One can assume the WSJ’s official Fed Whisperer, Jon Hilsenrath may well be attending.) 

Did this announcement throw markets for a loop? Not really. There have been rumors (perhaps trial balloons?) the Fed will raise interest rates and suggest they’ll marry it to another round of QE. Once they start experimenting with new policies, nothing will stop them going forward. It’s a slippery slope.

Stocks are now expensive from many different measures—cash flow, Pes and so forth. This means institutions are selling while Hedge Funds and Retail are either buying or neutral.

Earnings for Nike (NKE) was a catalyst for markets to rally.

Earnings beat estimates and, of course, the company stated they’ll buyback the obligatory $10 billion in shares.

Naturally they’ll borrow that money taking advantage of low interest rates. And, like many of their peers they’ll just increase company debt.

The song on the street this day is retailers are strong lifting stocks overall.

After seeing weak retail sales from last week and horrible reports from sector leaders like Nordstrom and Target cherry-picking was the order of the day Friday along with technology.

Market sectors moving higher included: S&P 500 (SPY), Technology (QQQ), Small Caps (IWM), Retail (XRT), Healthcare (XLV), Industrials (XLI), Consumer Discretionary (XLY), Regional Banks (KRE), Emerging Markets (EEM), Brazil (EWZ), Russia (RSX), India (EPI), Hong Kong (EWH), South Korea (EWY), Australia (EWA), Asia ex-Japan (AAXJ), China (FXI), Mexico (EWW) and Latin America (ILF).

Market sectors moving lower included: Energy (XLE), Consumer Durables (XLP), Materials (XLB), Europe (VGK), Spain (EWP), UK (EWU), Italy (EWI), Greece (GREK) Euro (FXE), Silver (SLV), Gold (GLD), Gold Stocks (GDX), Alerian MLP (AMJ), Natural Gas (UNG), Base Metals (DBB) and many more.

The top ETF daily market movers by percentage change in volume whether rising or falling is available daily.

Charts of the Day

Major U.S. Markets (6)
U.S. Market Sectors & ETFs (11)
Bonds (1)
Commodity & Currency ETFs (9)
International & Emerging Market ETFs (12)
$NYMO (1)
$NYSI (1)
$VIX (1)

Friday concludes two fast market changes.

First week sharply lower followed by this week’s sharply higher. It’s enough to give main street investors whiplash.

If the rumor is true the Fed will raise interest rates, and at the same time or nearer to it launch another round of QE, that would change how monetary policies have historically been conducted. We would have been better off if we had let companies fail in 2008 but had given the consumers the same money instead.

Let’s see what happens.